Big Chance Card!

Alright, I love free stuff, it's quite true.

At the beginning of November, the local Co-op, or the cooperative store, OR private business on campus that cooperates with the school to sell general food and household products (whew that's long), began a "value campaign" in which, during a rather nifty price cutting session, people could possibly win prizes while doing their shopping at co-op, by entering into a raffle.

The system for getting tickets to enter said raffle is fairly interesting.

Each time an individual spends 400 yen, or about 4 dollars, they receive a "抽選補助巻" {Chuusenhojomaki), or a "raffle assistant ticket" which looks like this:

Don't ask why I'm so vain. XD

Notice that these are translated as "assistant" tickets. This suggests that simply getting one of these bad boys is not enough. In fact, to even enter the raffle, you must collect ten of these "assistant" tickets, and then trade them in for one legitimate ticket. The REAL ticket is much like you'd expect; it has a ticket number that you input into a form online to enter for a chance to win prizes.

What kind of prizes?

Well look at this link here!

http://www.hokkaido.seikyou.ne.jp/value/

Or this screen cap I took, if you're lazy. Though you still might want to click it.

Crazy Japanese advertising...

One person can win a PS3, one person a Wii, two people walk away with brand new computers, 15 people get ipod nanos, and so on.

Naturally, I figured hey, I buy lunch often enough from the university... why not go for it?

Because 10 tickets is a deceivingly large amount of money. It's 4000 yen, or around 40 usd. And this assumes you spend 400 yen perfectly each time. Obviously you'd always spend more, so who knows how much money you'd spend to get 10 of those! Could be even 7000 yen!

For one chance at those prizes.

So really... you should just save your money and buy a nano yourself. It'd be far cheaper.

Unless you're smart like me, and you continue buying lunch as normal and mooch all your friends for the tickets they don't want to use.

That's some ego boosting right there. But essentially all my friends gave me the tickets they also got, since we all usually buy stuff from co-op at SOME point.

Well... Mike... that's cool and all. But did your plan work? How many did you get?


Six. I got six. Quick math makes that about 2.4 man, or 240 dollars of tickets. More like 300.

I am evil.

Now I sure hope this gives me any chance at all; closer inspection of the contest reveals that it's not just for the Sapporo campus but for ALL campuses of Hokkaido University.

Crapz.

But maybe other people won't spend as much money as I (through cooperation) amassed, right? Right?

Urg...

With me luck? I'd love a new free something! We'll find out December 9th!

- Mike

New Vlog: Apples

I eat too much, I know.

But check out the video below!





If the embed doesn't work, click the link below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeYhdR6ES8o

Link about Aomori's legendary "Ki ni Naru Ringo" （気になるリンゴ）(in japanese unfortunately, but really sweet photos) :
http://www.rakuten.co.jp/ringoen/557880/557929/

Sapporo Ramen Alley, 札幌ラーメン横丁

I went to a touristy tourist trap with my friend Tre. As he called it, we're "long term tourists," so it seemed fitting. Enjoy the video below!



If the embed isn't working, click the url below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY5vvZAN7oI

Influenza in Japan

I got sick in Japan... oh jeeze. Not cool.

I'll admit this before I begin, I've never gone to see a doctor for influenza in America. When you get the flu, you sleep it off.

They take things pretty seriously here though, (way to seriously, I've had to talk to 4 people and report it to the university administration that I was sick) and so, in connection with the Swine flu scare, I was asked to go visit the doctor a few days back. Boyoh, what an experience.

I asked for an English speaking doctor, but a large majority of the procedure and explanation was done in Japanese. We're talking everything but two or three sentences. Regardless of the doctor's English speaking ability, all of the nurses knew little to no English, and so my attempt for English security quickly flew out the window. To be fair... I knew enough Japanese to get by, as long as they tried to explain and perhaps show any words I didn't know. I'm sorry, I don't know what Antibiotic or Lymph Node is in Japanese, that's complex. (Apparently they are 抗生物質 or "Kouseibusshitsu" and リンパ節 or "Rinpasetsu" respectively... go figure. I am too curious sometimes).

Anyways, so first they shove a rod up your nose.

Wait wait what?

Yessssss, if there is any possibility of having influenza, to test for it, they take a small stem like rod and gently slide it up about 4-5 inches into your nose. Yikes.

I mean c'mon it LOOKS scary.

Er... yes it hurts. Badly. Burns even after that sucker is long gone. Despite the test coming back negative, the doctor noticed (as did I earlier) that my symptoms matched influenza, and I had swelling lymph nodes on my neck.

She then told me I would be on a drip to reduce the lymph node swelling, and then they'd give me some medication. Already I am stoked. Lymph node drip? What? Nifty.

So then I pass out for a nap with a drip on me, wake up, and they explain how to take the medication. This is all done in Japanese. I don't know why I remember any of those words.

Um... there is mad medication to take. I have a total of four. Four. If you include the drip they gave me, 5.

I will now briefly explain the medication. Because it is completely different than anything I have ever taken before.

Also the names are kind of funny.

The most prominent in my mind are "Cravit" (クレビット) and Relenza (リレンザ)

Relenza is apparently a powdered form of "Zanamivir", which you take with this insane nifty inhaler.

Click the picture for much more detail than I'm willing to squeeze onto this page

Cravit, or Kurabitto as it's called here, is perhaps the most odd, in that the drug of which it is composed of, Levofloxacin, it is highly criticized in America for it's potential to cause tendinitis, as well as other "life threatening" side effects.

But I'm not a doctor... I don't feel like questioning my Japanese one.

Oh dear what do they have me taking?

The other two drugs I'm on are called Loxoprofen (ロキソニン) an anti inflammatory (like Tylenol or Motrin or something), and -I'm not totally sure why I even have to take this, but- Famotidine (ファもチジン) a stomach acid inhibitor. It's an ingredient in Pepcid.

Holy junk nuts that is a lot of pills.

Sounds expensive right?

Well for two days of service the total was around 50 USD. Including two influenza tests. That sounds remarkably cheap to me, maybe I'm missing something.

The reason I had two tests, and thus went to the doctor twice, mind you, is because, as I mentioned earlier, the first test came up as inconclusive. They wanted to re-check, as it's possible I did the test too early.

This doctor was spot on. When I went in for the second test (which for some reason they did the test orally, not through the nasal cavity) they found out I had Type A influenza.

Not swine flu.

Thank god that would be embarrassing.

All of this amazing nice health care for 50 bones. WOW.

Dramatic Question: Why is it so cheap???
Answer: Japan has national health insurance, and I have, by law, National Health Insurance (Kokumin-Kenkō-Hoken 国民健康保険). Normally the cost of the bill would have been around 190 dollars, but I pay 30%. National Health Insurance in Japan covers ALL medical expenses.

So... well... this is confounding. This seems contrary to the free marketing idea that government run health care would lead to rationing or poorer service. I got lovely service.

In fact, let's talk about the service. GOODNESS those nurses were nice. I've never seen such attentive staff. They literally run when a patient calls for a question. All wearing clean uniforms and masks, so professional. I was gobsmacked.

Perhaps it's just a cultural difference eh?

Dang I hate when I have to rely on that excuse.

Hyper Branding

Most of you read my previous blog about food. Specifically the one with insanely priced melon.

And I'd assume, based on the messages and comments that I've gotten from my American friends, that a lot of people have become fairly defensive over the subject. How am I so audacious as to criticize American food but not Japanese food?

In fact this is a legitimate point. No culture is perfect, no food without criticism and no form of pleasure absolute. Perhaps it is philosophical of me, but the inherent quality of pleasure is that it ends, which just by hedonistic definition is bad. We all die, after all.

Therefore, it only seems fair to maybe take a stab at Japanese food. We've already discussed American food and it's seemingly less than desirable respect for the ingredients in which food is made.

But let's consider the opposite. What if you respect food TOO much?

It leads to something I'll call "hyper brand naming," and this is a phenomena all too common in Japan.

Perhaps we are all familiar with the idea of branding as a marketing tool. Fashion requires brands to make sales, fast food chains require a brand name to establish a sense of similarity among different shops as a pull strategy. Chipotle is owned by McDonalds? You'd never know, the brand name is what you assign the product to, not the stockholders equity.

Okay, fine fine, that's pretty standard. We need names to help us generalize by quality. It helps us make decisions.

Alas, in Japan, this trend is, well... obscene. Appalling. Hilarious.

To my previous readers, maybe you remember the melons I took a picture of? They are actually a brand of melon called "Yubari Melon", which is a melon farm located in the town Yubari, Hokkaido. The strange thing is that, as my friend Teppei told me recently, those melons are CHEAP compared to normal Yubari Melon.

Normal Yubari Melon, as Wikipedia also agreed with, costs 60-150 USD.

I mean to be fair it's quite pretty, ahahaha. Priced at around 70 USD.

Ho
Ly
Crap.

And thus we have the problem with hyper branding. No one in their right mind would spend 60 dollars on ONE fruit in the states. It's a melon, you have to draw a line somewhere. But precisely because it's made by Yubari, there is a niche market for it. This company survives in this cultural climate.

This idea of branding however, is frequently put towards food as a location, rather than a company, though there are some exceptions. As an example, other companies make Nama Caramel for far less, but the Hanabatake farm (the one I purchased) is the original, and thus the most liked. They have established branding.

We have it in America too, (Wisconsin cheese?), but this is taken to a hyper extreme. Japan loves branding. They love the idea that a product came from somewhere special. Kobe beef, Hokkaido milk, Kyoto green tea, I mean the list is endless.

Perhaps more appalling is that this is actually taken one step further. Products, to further make sales, stick on key brand words to their products. Yubari melon flavored white chocolate, or Hokkaido milk flavored cookies, as examples. Not melon, but "Yubari", so it must be better somehow, despite it not being an actual melon at all.

Does the quality always correlate with the brand? I'd be willing to bet no.

It's merely a completely outlandish extension of the idea of "local food." Everything has a location and thus a price and a suggested quality. But for many times it's just a marketing strategy, it has nothing to do with how good the dang thing tastes.

This correlates well with the idea of "omiyage" or souvenir gift giving, which comprises mostly of expensive, BRANDED foods that are limited. A perfect example is Shiroi Koibito cookies (White Lover in english, lolz). Despite being factory made, and easily shipped nation wide, Shiroi Koibito is only purchasable in Hokkaido, and only really consumed for gift giving.

Well what if I just wanna eat some Shiroi Koibito? Those things are tasty! Why isn't this product expanding? Why do I need to be in Hokkaido to buy cookies for 20 dollars? That's nuts!

Ooooh, brand appealllll.

Because the brand, the idea that it is limited, is appealing. Too appealing. Everything is branded, and too much stuff is "limited time only". And most of it is nonsense.

It's like fashion of food.

To be fair... it usually tastes pretty darn good. But not for all the extra effort and branding.